#Mentioned other sagas

[sera8273]

Despite how fucking heartbreaking and full of comfort the Ithaca Saga is, It cracks me up every time I think about.

Because from the literal Viewer’s perspective, you gotta admit…

Not only did Odysseus, oh I don’t know-

Blinded a God’s son whist making a joke about his one singular eye, proceeded to escape said God from potential death and then when he did infact die from him he then got revived, used a jet pack to beat his ass and fucking torture the said god until he pleaded for fucking mercy-

But he, after all of that, uses the same tactic that Scylla uses, going after the torches, to defeat the suitors and kill them all off.

The same Scylla that not only killed his men that he allowed but the same one that Poseidon is scared of-

Siren Penelope confirms this! “He will chase you high and low, so find a place he’ll never go. The one way you’ll get home is sailing where he’s scared to go.”

I understand that it’s more of a metaphor and he’ll never go there because oh hey reasons of pride and shit but taking this to another perspective makes this funnier, for me atleast-

[morganbritton132]

I love the newer teachers not knowing who Eddie is and visiting Steve at his house and wondering how they can afford such a nice house. I can imagine that they live in a house way above a teachers salary, much less a teacher with presumably, a lot of medical bills. They see gold records hanging on the walls and all of Eddie’s awards on a bookshelf and they are trying to connect the dots to who Eddie is.

David’s first impression of Steve is, admittedly, not great.

He was hired as a long-term substitute halfway through the school year and technically, Mr. Harrington was the only teacher on their floor not to introduce himself to him. They’re supposed to cover the eighth grade lunch period together, but Steve hasn’t shown up once since David was started three days ago.

Instead, the principal covered for him.

Cindy McCullen, the gossipy history teacher across the hall from him, says that it’s because of favoritism. She says that Principal Moreno always lets her favorites run rampant around the school and lets them do whatever they want, especially if they’re tenured. Steve Harrington is the most egregious example of blatant favoritism.

David starts to form an opinion about Mr. Harrington in his mind that only gets worse with every story he hears from Cindy. So, it’s a bit of a shock when Steve shows up for lunch duty the next day with a whole ass service dog.

He feels like an asshole.

Especially because Steve is so apologetic about missing the last three days and leaving David to ‘the wolves’ during his first week, “Is this your first teaching job? I’ve heard from the kids that you’re doing great!”  

He makes a conscious effort after that to get to know Steve and to stop letting other people form his opinions for him. Though, admittedly. He kinda fucks that up too.

The first time David meets Eddie, he thinks that he’s Steve’s brother.

It’s not that Steve doesn’t talk about his life outside of work. It’s just that he doesn’t go into a lot a detail. David knows that he’s married to a man, that he’s from Indiana originally, and he might have a kid. Maybe? A girl name Erica that tells him what a brony is and how they ruin everything.

Hell, David’s not even entirely sure he knows what Ozzy is in service of. Steve just said that he bumped his head one too many times and now he has a dog so his husband stops worrying so much.

The only surefire thing that David knows is that Steve has a brother that’s a bit of a dork. He has great hair and is really smart, but lacks tact. Steve loves him. You can tell by the way that he talks about the guy.

So one day, David is in the teacher’s lounge heating up a cup of Easy Mac while Steve is sitting with his head down at one of the tables. He’s about to suggest that Steve go home and sleep off whatever cold he has when a guy with long hair and a leather jacket sticks his head in the room and declares, “You look like shit.”

Steve doesn’t even lift his head when he flips him off which is – whoa, not something that David would expect from Mr. Harrington. He makes himself busy with stirring his mac and cheese while the two bicker with each other which is, admittedly, childish.

Leather Jacket’s main argument for why Steve has to listen to him and go home is because he’s older. Steve croaks out that that is bullshit and Leather Jacket threatens to call their Uncle Wayne if Steve doesn’t listen. He eventually agrees.

Before they leave, Leather Jacket sticks his hand out to David and introduces himself as the cooler Mr. Harrington (that gets a laugh out of Steve).

So, color him shocked when Steve invites their event committee over to his house.

David hasn’t even fully gotten over how nice of a neighborhood Steve lives in on a teacher and retiree’s salary when Leather Jacket gets introduced as Eddie, the husband Steve has mentioned. Then he just casually mentions a red carpet like, what?

And the craziest part is that he’s asked about his husband before!

Steve mentioned once that his husband was out of town and when David asked what he did for work, Steve said that he was retired. He said that his husband can play guitar and that one of their friends (James Hetfield) needed a last minute guitarist for some kind of fair (Coachella) so Eddie went to help out.

He definitely worded it like playing guitar was just a hobby that his husband has, not like. Not like platinum records lining the hallway to their bathroom or the picture of Steve and Eddie in Vegas with KISS stuck to the fridge. He swears the note on the dry erase board by the garage entrance signed ‘Dave’ is in Dave Grohl’s handwriting.

There’s an Grammy on the bookshelf by the fireplace.

Who the hell is Steve Harrington?

Better question: Who the hell is Eddie Munson?

Kathy laughs the entire drive to her house and she is still laughing when he drops her off. The only thing she says that could even be considered an answer is, “I think he’s on Tiktok. Start there.” 

[georgeharrisonsmiling]

Only a Northern Song

[efverse]

little sister...

[knight-of-the-graces]

I... am having EPIC Thoughts. I read a post that talked about how Odysseus really isn't doing any better with ruthlessness than mercy, and I just started thinking, so... here you so. Yes, I'm writing an essay now, you're welcome, I am 'That Guy' in every fandom I'm in ever, yes.

Ruthlessness and Mercy: Would It Matter? An EPIC: The Musical Study

In short... no. No, it really wouldn't.

From the beginning, the conflict was never about ruthlessness or mercy; it was always about the will of the gods. It never mattered whether Odysseus was merciful or ruthless or prideful or what-have-you, insert-chosen-character-trait-or-flaw-here-- the only thing that mattered was if he was obeying the gods, if he had angered them or not. Odysseus wasn't the problem in The Odyssey, at least at the start.

(This is not me saying the man doesn't have or cause problems, because he definitely does, but the overarching problem of The Odyssey isn't about Odysseus.)

Think about it. Several of the gods had decided --at least, in The Odyssey-- to make Odysseus' life a living nightmare. The reason for this seems to vary, but it's there. So right there, no matter what he did, what choices he made, the outcome was already decided for him. He was doomed from the start and didn't even know it.

See, here's the thing, about the Greek gods: Most of them really don't care about mortals any more than most humans care about insects. Interesting on occasion, but usually just something to ignore. And then you have the people who like to torment them, to pull off their wings and legs and watch them suffer and squirm-- those are the gods who involved themselves in the Trojan War. They weren't interested in the affairs of mortals in that they didn't care about the cause of the war, only that it was something interesting to do to break up the monotony of their daily lives up on Mount Olympus, a chance to show off and compete with one another and settle old scores. (I'm particularly upset about Aphrodite. Like, seriously, who just kidnaps some poor woman to marry off to a random guy she's never even met? I mean, c'mon, you're a literal goddess, you couldn't've just... y'know, made a person out of clay instead of kidnapping someone who already had a husband and family? Goodness.)

But anyway. Let's take a hypothetical, shall we? Let's say that Odysseus didn't show Polyphemus mercy, when Athena said to kill him. Do you really think Poseidon would've been any less angry about a dead descendant than a blinded one? I mean, even in this same tale the gods were known for taking vengeance on those who wronged their descendants, and being dead is definitely worse of a wrong than being blind, at least in my humble opinion.

Then, let's take into consideration who exactly killed him: that'd be Odysseus, King of Ithaca and all of that... and a champion of Athena. Now, this might or might not be common knowledge, but Poseidon and Athena competed extensively for the patronage of the city of Athens, and Poseidon lost, badly; that isn't the kind of slight he'd forget easily. (I mean, an olive tree is a food source, though, so... sorry, but it's definitely more useful than a salty spring from the salty man of the sea. Thanks, but no thanks.)

In EPIC, Odysseus had at least defied Athena, so she'd left him by the time Poseidon could discover what exactly he'd done, and thus wasn't responsible for defending her former champion; however, in a Ruthless hypothetical, he'd done exactly as she'd said, and now she had a predicament on her hands: Abandon the champion who had obeyed her to the letter, or face the wrath of Poseidon herself, too?

In The Odyssey, Athena abandons Odysseus to face the wrath of Poseidon by himself, so as not to incur her uncle's ire as well. So in our hypothetical, she would likely have abandoned Odysseus here too. The only thing that would change would be the guilt.

Why is that?

Well, to put it simply, there isn't a way for Odysseus to not incur Poseidon's wrath here. Polyphemus is Poseidon's son, and Odysseus --in order to save the lives of himself and as many of his men as he can-- will do him harm. Poseidon, as Polyphemus' father --whether a good one or not--, is responsible for avenging a slight against his bloodline. Athena, due to Odysseus' actions, will leave him.

Perhaps --straying from the question of ruthlessness and mercy-- if Odysseus hadn't said his name, if pride or anger or stress or whatever interpretation of it you take hadn't influenced his decision, Poseidon might not have learned who was responsible for the act. But then again, who else was sailing the sea --Poseidon's domain, about which he knew every detail-- in that exact area at that exact time, with a captain clever enough to give his name as Nobody so as to not reveal himself, with a sudden influx of stolen sheep on their ships where Polyphemus the shepherd had lost his?

Really, though, that isn't relevant. The question was if it would make a difference whether he was ruthless or merciful, and honestly... I don't think it would make much of a difference. One way or another, his crew was going to die. One way or another, he was going to wind up alone. Do you think that his crew wouldn't have mutinied after yet another monster their captain had chosen to spare came back with a vengeance? Do you think they would have listened when he warned them about Helios' cows then?

Do you think a merciful Odysseus would've chosen his traitorous crew, his former friends, over the chance to see his wife and son again?

[verycharismaticdragon]

I am DONE done with black lotus Binghe's robes

I have a bunch of photos to edit but. tomorrow

For now, please enjoy this picture of Shen Qingqiu having first-world problems 😑

[brainrotcharacters]

"Look what you turned me into" and "You didn't stop when I begged you" while he's stabbing him again and again is so satisfying to me actually

[sssnakeparty]

little wolf

[spareasterisks]

So, remember this from the Circe Saga?

EURYLOCHUS:

Captain, I have something that I must confess

Something that I must get off my chest

Until it is said, I cannot rest

Captain?

ODYSSEUS:

There's only so much left we can endure

Whatever you need to say can wait some more

Of that, I'm sure

Well the wait finally ended in the Thunder Saga.

EURYLOCHUS:

I've got a secret I can no longer keep

I opened the wind bag while you were asleep

I'm so sorry

Forgive me

[itsvioletevergarden29]

Imagine if Circe had realized how sleep-deprived Odysseus was

Circe: I can't get you home but I'll get you to the underworld instead. I'll release your men and I'll get you to the underworld instead-wait how many hours have you slept.

Ody: Uh...for nine days I've stayed wide awake-

Circe: Nope. I'm not getting you or your men to the underworld until you've had at least 7-8 hours of sleep.

Ody: But-

Circe: *Dragging him to a bed* Go to sleep.

[enjoljeacharlichele]

No, but how can it be a choice for Odysseus? How can he possibly not choose to go home, when to do so he has seen hundreds of his friends die, has renounced his principles - which he defended in the face of a goddess - and has killed people in their beds, a child?

What Zeus gives is not a choice and he says so. It's just a quicker way to get to a set course of action

[littlesliceofimmortality]

this is like. a screenshot that doesnt look real. why was i doing a 4x4 bingo??? Most of these are obvious like Yeah duh theres gonna be other datable cameos & shit yourself & die. the dsaf carryover will have more dsaf carry overs. yeah

BUT WHY WAS I RIGHT ABOUT MARLA BEING MENTIONED? ABOUT CIVILIAN/FUSCO? ABOUT THE WILLY WONKA REFERENCE?????????????

[mortiflyer]

The fifth rider. I like that furiosa is played by two different actresses but mostly because it gives me some ambiguity on her “canon” face lol

[irgendwiepoetisch]

the thing is, I wholeheartily believe that we already know who the Fremder is. and I think it has to do with the blut der 1000 katalanischen mauereidechsen. it's been mentioned so many times now that (apart from the compass) there's just no other reason for it to be mentioned again in act 5 EXCEPT to set up a reveal in act 6. so we probably already have 9/10 puzzle pieces but for the life of me I can't figure it out and it's driving me insane

[randomnameless]

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl. One of the best examples in this franchise of "culture bias" and "covet bigotry" is Fates, where Hoshido is too pure, too good, and Nohr is the bad, bad, evil barbaric nation. And this goes so far as to make birthright's story a more watered down version of blue units vs red units story from shadow dragon.

In 3H now the good, pure nation is Fodlan, and those who surround it are either filler to make the worldmap look prettier, or barbarians that like to hunt the good guys for sport (Almyra and Sreng, and possibly Dagda), with Brigid being a repetition of the noble savage trope. Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

(Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest)

Mmh,

Speaking on eggshells here because Fates isn't really my area of expertise, but basically, iirc you can thank Pat for scrubbing the worst of Hoshido!

Fates' best route is Revelation (rip izana) where both countries accept to set aside their differences to work together, meaning that, obviously, Hoshido wasn't only "blue unit land" against Nohr's "red units".

Even through Birthrout, you can catch here'n'there, even in the Pat version!, how Hoshido isn't roses'n'daisies, it's the land where Mikoto takes her niece "hostage" ffs as a measure against Corn's kidnapping (you can't tell me she never guessed Azura was Arete's kid!), where Ryoma (idk if you were the same anon as back then?) as the crown prince ignores the plight of the nohrians and why they were attacking Hoshido because life in Nohr sucks and they're starving (idk if, much like the Leonster/Thracia conflict, Hoshido refused to trade with them and let them starve instead), the fuckery with Mokushu and Shura's backstory, or Hoshido being Misogyny Land (tm).

Heck Birthrout has you march on Nohr's capital city iirc, and fight in the streets - it's in Birthrout that Corn's obsession with taking revenge/defeating Garon leads to Elise' death - so it's not the the "blue unit waltz on red unit lands, routs the enemy and calls a day".

So I don't think the Fates writers really wanted to push the "pure unproblematic land" card with Hoshido compared to Nohr, but rather depict them as both flawed - in different ways - and needing to work together.

Now, I wouldn't say the nations of Fodlan are good compared to the rest of the filler nations that make up this verse's world - after all it's Adrestia who starts hostilities against Dagda'n'Brigid and Adrestia who most recently flattened Brigid and made it its vassal! - but in a sense you're right calling them filler, the FE series in general don't spend a lot of time to depict nations in general, they're just "the place character X is from" and for all of its, hm, reknown writting, Fodlan is following the trend, Albinea is no less different than Cheve (wait, we have one map set in Cheve! kill that) so bar flavor text, they're effectively just "filler".

I disagree about Sreng and Almyra being filler though, if Sreng could be seen as a ref to the Thracia situation or Norh/Hoshido fight for ressources, Almyra?

Is basically Verdane all over again - with the dubious honor of having a Verdanite Lord who, unlike Jamke has some relevance to the plot bar his introduction, but most important, seems to appreciate and want to emulate/import the values/methods of his country to the cast/main plot.

Can you imagine FE4 where Jamke suggests to kidnap Deevtar to seduce lure Andrei in a trap and rekt him?

Of course not.

Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

I guess they agreed with the "get rid of prejudice without dealing with the dragon in the room" idea, but the main issue I mentionned and talked about in the other anon reply was the how, and what, doylist wise, it conveys.

"I'll unite people and get rid of prejudice by busting open your country to my people who are as prejudiced as you supposedly are, and I will bring you new values"

That's... not a good way to bring people together lol.

Even in FE16 I found Claude and Almyra's writing a bit odd : why asking Timmy first to stop shunning Bob when Timmy started to avoid Bob because Bob keeps on stealing his lunch money? Shouldn't you ask Bob first to, uh, not be an ass?

In Nopes?

Bob ruins Timmy's house, hits Timmy's toddler sister in the face and still steals his lunch money - but now, Bob has the nerve to tell Timmy that he's doing this to "help" him.

Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest

Hmmm,

I don't know if you played the older games (FE1 to FE10), but as far as I remember, bar Archanea verse, we have different rulers for each countries and the world is never an unified entity -

And even then, Marth doesn't unify the world by making people "cohabit by force", as forced as it is, everyone gives him their crown.

Sanaki doesn't tell Elincia to suck it as she annexes Crimea in FE10, ditto with Innes and Joshua, or Ced and Ares in Jugdral... I can see Leif's unification of Thracia falling under that criteria, but even then, it's not so much by force than Travant making suicide by cop because he wanted the peninsula to be united and understood he couldn't be the one to do it.

Uniting the continent by force is, on the contrary, what red emperors do, and in traditional FE games, red emperors are defeated.

To return to your main point :

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl.

Of course, and I totally agree!

The FE series has always been, as its core, a series where a "rightful ruler" returns home to rule "rightfuly" and better than its predecessors, by acknowledging what they did wrong and what they can do now.

That being said, a game is never written in a vacuum : that's the doylist side of various discussions : "What were the devs thinking, was what their reasoning when they decided to make the game this way?"

In 2004, real world persons believed that putting Devdan in their game was okay.

You can give them some flak because different cultural references between Japan and the US world (hell, western world at this rate because damn if Devdan hit "international" racist stereotypes boxes!) - and yet, can you really suppose the devs wouldn't have known, in 2004, that those stereotypes are harmful to real life people and Devdan was basically an insult?

But Devdan was just a living (as much as a fictional character can be alive, but you catch my drift lol) stereotype, the issue was just with Devdan existing.

It was 2004, 15 years later, we expect of IS - not your backwater company! - to never ever fall in the same pits, right?

(well, we had FE13 with the Feroxi main characters who love to fight being dark skinned... so the Devdan dev might still have been there :/ )

FE Fodlan, let it be for design or even names, took some inspiration from RL (it was funny upon release to catch all those links and nods!), and while i appreciated the aesthetic, it was bound to create another "Devdan" issue.

You have Almyra, designed with several RL inspirations (they weren't being subtle with Claude's battalion called the Immortals lol), from design (Claude's clothes and braids!) to units (mounted archers!) to, well, names.

Okay, in itself, it's nothing as insulting as Devdan's existence. But taken with the context?

The devs wrote that Fodlan's aesthetic was supposed to be the Age of Discoveries (1500s and onwards?) so yes, during that Age, you had people who were prejudiced as fuck against people from other lands/different cultures.

But in 2019, we know that those prejudices were full of shit, and either fueled by ignorance, or just, the need to find a good "excuse" to get new lands/manpower/ressources.

Maybe the devs wanted to showcase this part of history : depict the characters being prejudiced against "foreigners" and have them later learn that their prejudice was unfounded !

But... they took the inverse path

Hilda's racist stereotypes? They're shown to be....

True through both games!

As you put it, Almyra are the "barbarians" who : attack the land the characters are from when they're at their weakest, for no reason than to get a good fight - even if it means dying which in turns create several orphans they don't give a fuck about - pillage and "rampage" in cities, let their allies die after accepting a "mutual support" alliance with them, and ultimately rave and scream at their "outdated" values and how you're going to bring them yours.

"You see those people who were derided as savages and barbarians back then in RL - and still are in some parts of the world because the early 2000s happened and in general because racism exists? - Well I'm going to base my fantasy "token barbarian country who is untrustworthy and backstabs everyone" based on them!"

:/

I know you can't compare tomatoes to watermelons, but the Baten Kaitos franchise also has a nation who's, more or less, full of assholes, racists and imperialist pieces of shit. But the devs in those games designed each island/country from scratch, there is no nation that immediately calls back to "RL country X or culture Y"!

you can make a farfetched point about the people wearing ceremonial masks and having totems being a mix of several RL inspirations or at least being a call back to them... but they're part of the most OP people of that universe!

So why? Why, doylist wise, FE Fodlan designed with care - you can't tell me those costumes and outfits were designed in 10 minutes! - Almyra and its characters... only to have them act out as what an english book from the 1780s depicted "oriental" people ?

Unlike Devdan, the racism doesn't ooze out from the way the characters/country was designed, but what role they fit in the story.

It's not a sociopolitical commentary or representing real world but more like another jab at IS for being as prejudiced against non western/japanese cultures and civilisations as they were when FE4 was released, which is problematic in 2019/2022.

(and then you have Square Enix giving us Hyzante in Triangle Strategy, which is even more in your face with the dubious parallels)

[wildsaltair]

“well Rome wasn’t built in a day” Rome??? RoME???? the city where my beloved was??? Maximus?????